Person-to-person commerce has grown substantially in recent times, facilitated through the ease of communication enabled by the Internet and the rapid growth in smartphone use.
However, it remains problematic to find individuals with specific skill sets that can be trusted, or to provide services to new clients built on trust. Existing platforms that connect freelancers to potential clients include transactional services such as Upwork™, Freelancer™, Yelp™, TaskRabbit™ and Thumbtack™. These services typically source individuals who offer commoditized services in a race to the bottom for price without trust. Posts on social networks such as Facebook™ or Twitter™ are ephemeral and require constant re-posting to remind an audience they exist. Business networks such as LinkedIn™ function primarily as online resumes that tend to be static in nature, and asking friends for referrals is time-consuming and spends scarce social capital.
There is currently no effective system for matching a person with the people he or she should know, who are also looking for them.
The preceding discussion of the background to the invention is intended only to facilitate an understanding of the present invention. It should be appreciated that the discussion is not an acknowledgment or admission that any of the material referred to was part of the common general knowledge in the art as at the priority date of the application.